2!

Levi turned 2 on April 28th. We did a Go, Diego, Go! theme this year...last year was balls. He watches Diego and Dora in the mornings and then Diego again, right before bed. He loves the animals on the show and interacts when questions are posed by the characters. We've probably seen each episode a handful of times now, but that's okay.

I had a hard time finding Diego toys in stores, but Ebay had no shortage. So, I was lucky enough to use a Groupon for $15 (I paid $7 for that) and then $20 out of pocket, for what I consider a pretty good selection of animals, Diego figures, a few vehicles, and the rescue center. He plays with them each day and could care less that the items are used.

I offered to make a Rescue Pack or Click the Camera cake, knowing those would be the easier options, and he chose Click the Camera.

We didn't have a party, just mom, dad, and Grandma Shawn. It was enough though. He understood that it was his birthday and why he got presents.

If you ask him how old he is he will say 2 and hold up 5 fingers since he can't only hold up 2. He tries though. ;)

We had a pancake breakfast, a happy meal for lunch, and pizza for dinner...all favorites of little man Booth.

He got his very own laptop, the Leapster Leap Top, clothes, books, a bath toy, tools, a puppy suitcase, a Diego tricycle, and much more. He was a happy birthday boy.

Let him eat cake!

We discovered that Levi LOVES cake! We had extra frosting after his birthday, so we made a Mother's Day cake, too. He was in cake heaven. I think he likes the icing the most. I didn't like icing when I was younger, so I'll say he gets it from Josh. :)

Shapes!!

Levi is a shape-sorter extraordinaire!

Star Day

Today was Star Day at our house. I decided on Valentine's Day to institute shape days so we could have some more fun learning shapes. Levi loves stars, so we had some fun with stars this morning. He enjoyed a star cookie that we made yesterday afternoon, but didn't try the pbj star or cheese star I served at lunch. He did eat the star Gerber puffs though.  We colored the star sheets, but he just wanted to play with the crayons instead of coloring...mom did most of the coloring.  :)

We went on a star hunt. Instead of taping cut-out stars to the walls as decorations, (because I couldn't find the 2 rolls of scotch tape we have in the house,) I hid them in obvious places in Levi's room, play area, pocket wall hanging, and on some furniture. He enjoyed finding them.

San Antonio

Josh had his final Spring Break last week, so we took 2 days to visit San Antonio. Its a 3-hour drive from Houston...we're so glad we invested in a portable DVD player. Levi didn't do too bad...he just had a hard time falling asleep in the car.

We went to the Alamo when we arrived. It was hot and sunny and I think Levi needed to burn off too much energy after being in the car all morning, so we didn't get to see too much, but he enjoyed the cannons. There isn't much organization to the Alamo tour and it was so busy, so it was hard to grasp what we were seeing. We enjoyed dinner at our favorite steak house, Longhorn. There isn't one in Houston, so although there are countless well reviewed restuarants close to the Riverwalk, we just decided to get what we know is good and can't enjoy often.

Day 2 was centered on the Riverwalk. We didn't have much of a plan, which is a little unusual for us, so we enjoyed our riverboat ride, walking around, stopping for ice cream, and wandering the mall a bit. Levi was happy there were so many stairs around. The sky was overcast most of our time on the Riverwalk which was very pleasant.

We ended up getting back to Houston at 5pm, so to avoid sitting in traffic, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a yummy dinner and Levi enjoyed rocking and playing checkers. It was a pleasant evening. It was a mini-vacation, but just the time away we needed.

Build-a-Bear

Friday was simply a marvelous day. The weather was beautiful and we just had fun. We got a coupon for a free build-a-bear animal, so we headed to Memorial City Mall to put it to use. After looking around, Levi chose a puppy that we named Murphy.

Here he is walking out of the store with his new friend.

He wanted to open his friend while we were in the mall, but I encouraged him to wait until we got to the car. We opened the box right away and he enjoyed his friend for the first 3 minutes of the ride, before tossing him aside. Later, he was very excited to show dad his new friend.

POCKETS!

Levi currently loves carrying around a tube of chapstick and a small container of bubbles. He LOVES to put them in mom and dad's pockets and pull them back out again. Well, it gets old pretty fast, so we made Levi a few pockets that he can access a little easier than his own and maybe mom and dad won't get frustrated as often. (Please ignore the rug that we can't keep straight.)


So, I removed the pockets from a pair of jeans that I don't wear anymore and then cut off one pant leg that I cut down one side. (I hope that makes sense.) So, the pockets are sewn onto one pant leg that has been opened up. Right now the pockets are tacked onto the back of a dining room chair until we can decide where and how to hang it, but Levi has spent the better part of the morning putting in and taking out a lid, chapstick, bubbles, suncreen, and block. Mom and dad have only been asked once to put something in their pockets, so things are definitely improving. :)

It's all about the love...or hearts!

I told myself that if I didn't start making holidays festive now that I probably never would. So, I made a few dozen paper hearts and decorated the house after Levi went to bed and he woke up to a heart-filled Valentine's Day.

We had pancakes for breakfast...each of us enjoying one that was a heart. Then, heart pizzas for lunch with pink heart rice krispy treats for dessert. Levi didn't really enjoy his, but that's okay.

We enjoyed ourselves and I was very glad that I put forth a little effort to have some days that are more special than others. It gave me the idea to institute shape days at our house. Levi can already point out stars (there's always a red star on our Macy's bag...I have such a good little shopper), and now hearts, so I am going to continue and have square days, circle days, and heck trapezoid days, so we can have fun learning our shapes. :)

Houston's "Snow" Day

Houston basically shut down on Friday, Feb. 4th for the 2 inches of snow forecasted, so we stayed in to avoid all of the Houstonians who don't know how to drive on snow and ice. We made fingerpaints for Levi out of pudding...you can see that he enjoyed it.

(Note: there was no snow, only a sheet of ice.)

Levi Classic: Learning to walk

This is from last April--but its still one of my favorites and I realized we'd never posted it.